Paving the way

In his engaging talk at The Bookseller’s Marketing & Publicity Conference—held on Monday at County Hall in London and streamed live—the documentary film-maker and media trainer David Bond described the M&P delegates as “pioneers”, a subset of humans who are confident, take risks, and are people-focused. “We are motivated by the future, by big thinking and we love concepts,” he said. There were two other groups: “settlers”, who value family, their roots, and security, and “prospectors”, jet-setters, looking for wealth who like to keep up with the Joneses (I know, right).

His speech was on how best to prepare authors for media interviews—one of his aims, he said, was to get authors to think about their books from the perspective of these other factions. “Identifying stories that touch these different types,” he said, “is a really good shortcut to getting cut-through for books.” But he also referenced how we can all make the mistake of focusing on people like us. In our case, the readers who already show up, rather than those out of view. 

Elsewhere, speakers from TikTok and Substack explained how to use these new platforms to create ecosystems which both discover and nurture readers

This is not a new issue, and if we have learned anything recently it is just how big a problem it can be. That said we are getting better at it. The Booker Prizes’ director of prize management and special projects Hannah Davies talked of how the prize was finding new audiences, not least through its engagement with the singer Dua Lipa; the team from #Merky Books explained how its recent festival further underlined its ambitions to own and change the mainstream; and producer Pollyanne Conway of Cactus TV talked impressively of how their show “Between the Covers” had positioned itself as entertainment first and foremost. Elsewhere, speakers from TikTok and Substack explained how to use these new platforms to create ecosystems which both discover and nurture readers. Dark Matter founder and c.e.o. Micallar Walker spoke of the need to create safe spaces for Black authors at her events. Across the board, it seemed the goal was to foster community, belonging and greater connectedness.

We sometimes forget that as beguiling as publishing can be, it can also feel othering. A panel on looking after authors (and their publicists) referenced how managing the reality of being an author—whether that’s the disappointments and near-misses which can wear on their mental health, or the pressure of social media—is an incredibly important part of the day job. As Canongate’s communications director Anna Frame said, we need to have grown-up conversations about publishing as a business, not a dream.

The end of day brainstorm showed what this might look like: a group discussion to find potential new audiences in an industry-wide campaign for reading. It was an example of how we can speak with more than one voice but with the single aim of reaching many different types of people. Pioneering is not just about discovering something new, it is also about paving the way for those yet to arrive.

#M&PConf23 was programmed by marketing consultant Miriam Robinson.